Page 163 - Malay sketches

XIV

BER-HANTU

Striving to reach the mystic source
of things, the secrets of the earth
and sea and air
L. MORRIS
could all see the tunggul merah, the crimson
WE streak which boded the death of the
King.
Looking from the top of our green-terraced hill
across the clear wide river late one afternoon, this
curious phenomenon appeared in the sky, above the
last spur of a picturesque range of mountains which
the of two considerable streams
separates valleys
whose united waters flow into the Straits of
Malacca.
Standing on the right bank of the river, a stretch
of level land lies between the bank and the
opposite
foot of this range, and the wealth of foliage hides
from view the houses, orchards, and ricefields which
cover that fertile But the Sultan's house, a
plain.
palm-thatched wooden structure, three houses on